Cocktail #42: Boo Loo (In a Pineapple)

Despite being a bit behind schedule, I'm in the final stretch! Forty-two down, ten to go!

This week, I wanted to do something easy, and something fun. How can you ever go wrong with a drink served in a pineapple? I've done a couple pineapple drinks in the past, and it never gets old. I found this recipe for the Boo Loo (in a pineapple) in Jeff Berry's Grog Log. He doesn't provide any attribution for this one other than "circa 1965."

Let's get right into it:

A few small chunks of fresh pineapple
2.50 oz. unsweetened pineapple juice
1.50 oz. fresh lime juice
1.00 oz. honey
1.50 oz. club soda
1.50 oz. Demerara rum (I used Hamilton)
1.50 oz. gold Puerto Rican rum (I used Mount Gay, which is from Barbados)
0.75 oz. dark Jamaican rum (I used Plantation)
0.75 oz. 151 Demerara rum (I used Lemon Hart)

Heat the honey until liquid, then mix with juices and fruit in a blender. Stir in rums and soda. Pour into a 36 ounce snifter -- or a hollowed out pineapple -- that is filled with crushed ice.

I served mine in a pineapple, as you can see. I messed up the way I chopped the top off and it ended up not working as a cap, so then I just cut the leaves off right at the base and speared them into the pineapple core with a cocktail pick.

Now, you may notice that this sucker contains *a lot* of alcohol. I would encourage you to try halving this recipe in order to not imbibe so much in one drink. Then again, if you want to settle into a Friday night with this sucker, who am I to suggest you do anything differently - but you've been warned!

My first impression after taking a sip was that the honey, which was very noticeable, went really well with the darker rums present in this cocktail. Yes, this drink is very boozy. But, considering the amount of rum present, it actually was easy to drink and incredibly did not feel overpowering. The club soda and a little dilution once some of the ice melts surely helps - the 10th sip will definitely be different than the first. I enjoyed this drink a lot, but next time I'd probably halve the recipe and dial the honey back just ever so slightly.

I'll leave you with a little Andrews Sisters number, which I actually hadn't heard before: "Hula Ba-Luau." Cheers!

Cocktail #22: Voodoo Grog

This week's cocktail was a fun (and delicious) one.

I've been wanting to try a flaming cocktail for a few weeks and this week's Voodoo Grog seemed like the perfect opportunity. I found it by looking up cocktails in Jeff Berry's Potions of the Caribbean that use allspice or pimento dram (which I made myself recently and have been wanting to use more often). Following last week's Suffering Bastard, which I found to be a wonderfully spicy and dry cocktail, I was looking for a drink that might have a similar profile and figured that almost anything that used allspice dram would be a good candidate. I wasn't disappointed.

According to Berry, the Voodoo Grog was invented by Trader Vic in the mid-1950s. Berry slightly adapted a version he found in Trader Vic's 1972 Bartender's Guide as such:

1.00 oz. gold Puerto Rican rum (I used good old Bacardi)
1.00 oz. gold rhum agricole vieux (I used the closest rum I had - a rhum Barbancourt)
0.75 oz. fresh lime juice
0.75 oz. fresh white grapefruit juice
0.75 oz. allspice or pimento dram (I cut this back to 0.50 oz. - use what works for you)
0.25 oz. honey
0.50 oz. passion fruit syrup (given my past experience with drinks being overwhelmed with passion fruit syrup, I decided to cut this back to 0.25 oz. and I'm glad I did).
1 egg white
Nutmeg
1 cup crushed ice

Dissolve the honey in the lime juice. Place this mixture, and all other ingredients -- except nutmeg -- into a blender. Blend for 20 seconds. Pour un-strained into a Voodoo tumbler, large snifter, or, as I did, into a hollowed out pineapple with the core still intact. Dust with freshly grated nutmeg. Garnish with a mint sprig and pineapple stick (I used three pineapple leaves and a swizzle stick).

I'd heard that nutmeg can sometimes be used on flaming drinks to create sparks with the flame, so figured I would try a small flame with this cocktail. I kept the core of the pineapple intact after using my handy tool to hollow the rest of it out. I then used a plain toothpick to attach a spent half of a lime to the pineapple core. I soaked a sugar cube in lemon extract (which has a higher proof than 151 rum, and thus provides a better flame) and lit the sucker on fire! My first attempt was slightly less flame than expected, so I used more lemon extract - probably about a tablespoon - and tried again, with excellent effect!

***Please note: Always use extreme caution when creating flaming drinks! Always be sober when using flames, warn any guests, be sure you have a fire extinguisher handy, and be sure to extinguish the flames safely before drinking the cocktail. ***

To my delight, not only was this cocktail fun to make and look at, but it was also delicious. The egg white gave it a beautiful, light froth, and the combination of the sweet passion fruit and honey with the spicy allspice dram and nutmeg made for a surprisingly fantastic meld of flavors. The passion fruit did not overwhelm the drink at all - just be careful to not use too much. The two types of rum almost took a backseat - the drink tasted like it barely had any alcohol in it at all.

In honor of the name of this week's cocktail, I give you "Voodoo Dreams" by Les Baxter. Cheers!

Cocktail #10: Crucian Banana Squash

I was getting a little tired of the general direction of the previous nine cocktails, which, generally -- with some variation -- were a combination of a strong sour, a sweet, and rum. I was in the mood for something with a different kind of character - a strong coconut drink, or something with a banana base. Paging through Jeff Berry's tome, Potions of the Caribbean, a recipe towards the end caught my eye: the Crucian Banana Squash. It's also incredibly easy, with only three ingredients, and made with affordable, easy-to-find rum.

This drink (with, in my opinion, a somewhat unfortunate name) originated at the Sprat Hall Plantation, St. Croix, circa early 1960s. Apparently up until fairly recently this place was still operating and you could have stayed in the oldest guest house on the island, which was built in 1670!   Back in the 1960s, according to Berry, this place was really informal and the owners operated the bar as an "honor bar" where guests recorded their own drinks in a spiral notebook to be tallied up later. As Berry notes, "although it sounds like a banana daiquiri, its roots actually go all the way back to the 17th century Spanish Main: compare [this drink] to William Dampier's instructions for making the Miskito Indian drink Mishlaw. The recipe below first appeared in the 1962 book, International Cocktail Specialties.

Here's the setup:

4.00 oz. white Virgin Islands rum (I used Cruzan)
1.00 oz. fresh lime juice
2 whole bananas, very ripe with brown spots on skin
1.00 cup crushed ice

Step one:
Peel and slice bananas as thinly as you can, then place in a shallow bowl. Pour rum over banana slices. Cover bowl and let bananas soak in rum for four hours in your fridge.

Step two:
After the 4 hours have elapsed, pour contents of bowl into a blender. Add lime juice and crushed ice. Blend until smooth, around 30 seconds. Pour unstrained into Old Fashioned glasses. Serves 2.

The rum and bananas after soaking for four hours

Now, since I just recently received this wonderful tool to core pineapples, I decided to forgo the Old Fashioned glasses and instead use a whole pineapple as my vessel.

Berry says you should garnish with plantain chips, but I decided to be a little more ridiculous and go full banana dolphin:

(To make a banana dolphin follow this wonderful tutorial from the folks at Chicago's Lost Lake tiki bar, or just slice open the tip, plop in a cherry, make three slices for fins and put in pineapple leaves, and use cloves for eyes. Cut roughly in half and stick a coffee stirrer or cocktail straw in the bottom half to anchor.)

I also added an umbrella, some pineapple leaves, and a swizzle stick from the Tonga Hut. The resulting drink is a real winner in my opinion. Possibly my favorite drink so far in this little adventure. It's not too boozy - in fact, you barely taste alcohol. It basically tastes like a wonderful, freezing, banana smoothie, and the kick of the rum hits you after a few minutes to let you know it's there. The lime juice was too much for my better half, but I didn't find it overpowering in the least.

Serving this sucker in a pineapple with a banana dolphin makes it really fun and ridiculous - just as tiki should be.

Mix one of these up and share with your favorite person - you will both enjoy it!

While you're mixing, throw on a classic - Martin Denny's Forbidden Island! Cheers!